Hillary Clinton memoir hits out at 'political slugfest' on Benghazi

A picture taken on May 14, 2014, shows former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton waiting to speak at the World Bank in Washington, DC. Hillary Clinton has given her most detailed account yet of the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya that killed four Americans, but said she will not join the "political slugfest" over the tragedy. -- PHOTO: AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Hillary Clinton has given her most detailed account yet of the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya that killed four Americans, but said she will not join the "political slugfest" over the tragedy.

In excerpts from her forthcoming memoir "Hard Choices" published Friday by Politico, Clinton offered a blunt rebuttal to Republican lawmakers who have repeatedly accused her of bungling the response to the deadly attack on the US mission and of misleading the American public.

"Those who exploit this tragedy over and over as a political tool minimize the sacrifice of those who served our country," President Barack Obama's first secretary of state said in perhaps the book's most anticipated chapter, "Benghazi: Under Attack." "Those who insist on politicizing the tragedy will have to do so without me," wrote Mrs Clinton. "I will not be a part of a political slugfest on the backs of dead Americans."

Mrs Clinton, who lost out to Mr Obama in their battle for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, is mulling a second White House run, and her upcoming book tour - following the memoir's release June 10 - is widely seen as a way to lay the groundwork for a 2016 campaign.